PC flooded, Hard drive(s) gone

[Mcneck]

Hey there,

 

Yesterday I noticed my PC made some weird water bubbling noises... well until yesterday I had a custom waterloop installed, so of course I immediatly checked the insides.

I could not find any water where it didnt belong but there was some water missing in the reservoir, I thought well after a year thats maybe normal.

5 Minutes later I noticed one of my hard drives was not recognized, guess where my hard drives were located... .

Turns out I did not check properly for waterleaks the first time, both my hard drives were plenty splashed with coolingwatersolutionstuff.

I spend the next few hours ripping my whole Computer apart and drying everything.

 

All in all I am probably lucky, but at least one of my hard drives seems to be a goner. I dried it as good as I could even with screwing off the pcb and drying it CAREFULLY.

I let the hard drives sit for a day now and just now I assembled my oldest drive back together and connected it to an external SATA-USB adapter. With the result, that it spins up, clicks a few times and spins down again (Without beeing recognized by my laptop).

Now if I cant rescue that drive its no big deal, since I am farely sure I backed everything up thats on it, thats also why I even attempted to access it. Of course if someone has an Idea that could bring it back to life I am open for suggestions!

 

What concerns me more, is my 2TB WD RED which still worked before I ripped my PC apart, but it still got a lot of water on it.

I am aware that if water got inside it, spinning it up like I did with my other drive could damage it even more. Which is why I have not touched it since I "dried" it.

Is there any better advice to rescue it than putting it in a bag with rice or moist absorbers?

 

This is the PCB of the WD RED, semes like there is some corrosion going on, i wiped it clean the best I could.

The old drive thats probably a goner:

newer drive thats god help me hopefully still works:

[Kanna]

This is why I don’t use custom loops, but you might not get any data back if water got inside but the PCB shouldn’t be wet sine it is on the under side (unless you got really old HDD)

[Senzelian]

I forgot the reason, but putting it in a bag with rice was apparently a bad idea.
Instead you should let it sit somewhere dry and warm for a few days.

[AbydosOne]

7 minutes ago, Mcneck said:

external SATA-USB adapter

Are you using one of these?

 

 

If so, they don't work with 3.5" hard drives. You'll need to get one with an external 12V power supply. (Just want to clear up that detail, so you can keep troubleshooting)

[Mcneck]

4 minutes ago, Kanna said:

This is why I don’t use custom loops, but you might not get any data back if water got inside but the PCB shouldn’t be wet sine it is on the under side (unless you got really old HDD)

I thought so too, but luckily I checked and there was plenty of water under the PCBs

 

3 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

I forgot the reason, but putting it in a bag with rice was apparently a bad idea.
Instead you should let it sit somewhere dry and warm for a few days.

thanks for the advice, no rice then!

[Mcneck]

@AbydosOne, thanks for the tip, but I am using an adapter with an additional power supply. I wish it was an easy fix like this 

[AbydosOne]

Just now, Mcneck said:

@AbydosOne, thanks for the tip, but I am using an adapter with an additional power supply. I wish it was an easy fix like this 

 I just like to remove some of the simple options first.

 

7 minutes ago, Mcneck said:

thanks for the advice, no rice then!

If you can find some of those silica desiccant packets, put those in bag/container with the drive(s). That will help pull out moisture.

 

However, if there was water and electricity in the same place/time, those drives are probably dead, sorry to say.

[Mcneck]

Well, I guess I need to order another WD RED.

Someone in the market for a used watercooling loop?  

[Felicity]

yes but ....not yours

>.>

also, the rice thing doesn't help and is a myth, but it's not really ~bad~. the myth is that the rice will absorb the water which doesn't really actually happen without heat too  

[Mcneck]

Well, wish me luck...

[Mcneck]

drying the drive with silicagelpads seems to have done the trick, the drive still works and I am copying everything thats important to me to the new drive, in case it fails at a later point in time.